


Who In The Hell's In The Bathroom?!

by StellarLibraryLady



Series: Norene's Magical, Mystical World [5]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Bathrooms, Farm Humor, Gen, Humor, Outdoor Settings, Outhouses, Squatting, farm life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-09-23 11:24:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9654680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StellarLibraryLady/pseuds/StellarLibraryLady
Summary: Two situations in which country women's ability to squat relieved a great pressure.





	

**Author's Note:**

> True stories.

Even though Norene’s sister’s family was visiting, Norene was tired and went to bed shortly after seven p.m. Grandpa and Grandma would be in charge of entertaining. Norene had stayed up late the night before with the company, and she just had to get some rest. She felt that she might even be coming down with something.

Norene slept in the upstairs back bedroom when visiting family took over her bedroom. It was quieter and the furthest from foot traffic. So that’s where Norene headed and gratefully slid between the cool sheets. She was soon asleep.

Later, around nine, Norene awoke and heard her sister’s family leaving. Since it was summertime and warm outside, it took awhile for them to leave and for Norene’s parents to come back into the farmhouse. Norene rolled over and went back to sleep.

Sometime after eleven, Norene awoke, feeling much better than she had all day. She had just needed to sleep. Staying up late and partying into the wee hours, getting a few hours of sleep, then arising early to cook and overeat all day had finally taken its toll. Following that routine for several days would lay anybody low. Norene had simply needed quiet and sleep.

But now she needed a bathroom break. There was only one bathroom in the old farmhouse, and that was located downstairs just off the living room. The house had been built in 1862 from bricks manufactured about a mile north of the farm. When they were originally built, farm houses from that era did not have flush toilets or even indoor bathrooms. They had outhouses. Sometime in the history of the house, provisions were made for indoor plumbing and, wonder of wonders, an indoor privy! For some reason, the bathroom was not built as an extension off the kitchen. Instead, a section of the living room was blocked off. That made going to the bathroom a real family affair as television watchers were a scant few feet from the area where the most intimate of bodily functions were seen to. The living room was consequently very small. One uncle remarked that the living room was merely a big waiting room for the bathroom.

Norene walked out of her temporary bedroom into the wide upstairs hallway that was dimly lighted by the night light that she had turned on when she had gone to bed. As she walked down the walnut stairway, she could hear the television playing in the living room. When she came around the corner, she saw that the living room was lighted by several table lamps. But nobody was in it.

A glance showed Norene that the bathroom door was closed, meaning that someone was using it. So, she sat down, watched the show that was playing, and waited her turn for the bathroom. The program was The Tonight Show, so she did not change the channel. Even if she had wanted to watch something different, she wouldn’t have changed the channel because it had obviously been selected by the bathroom user.

It was now about twenty after eleven, so Norene watched some of Johnny Carson and his guests. After fifteen minutes or so, no one had come out of the bathroom yet, which was odd. But Norene didn’t question it.

But by this time, though, her need to use the bathroom was becoming dire. Having lived for many years on farms with only outhouse facilities, Norene knew that the next step was to go outside to relieve herself. Except, there was no longer outhouse facilities on this particular farm. What to do? Well, the only choice was to do what generations of other farm women had done. Go outside in the shadows and squat. So, that’s what Norene decided to do.

Now, at this time on this farm and other farms in the area, and proceeding down to present day, farmhouses, outbuildings, and barns are lighted by security pole lights that come on automatically with darkness and turn off automatically with daylight. Because of all of this lighting, farmsteads can look like small villages when approached at night. So it simply wasn’t a matter of opening the front door and squatting. Norene had to go around to the shadowy side of the house that faced a dense timber so she would not be seen squatting outside by cars out on the interstate.

Another factoid about this farmhouse is that it was probably haunted. Having been built in 1862, it had had an opportunity to collect its share of ‘haints.‘ Norene and her family had experienced several unexplained incidents down through the years of living on this old place. So, ordinarily, Norene would not be creeping around outside by herself after midnight in the shadows of a haunted house, but these were not ordinary times.

Happily, the only thing that bothered her was the family dog who came to see what Norene was doing all squatted down in the shadows. He thought she was wanting to play. She was not. All he got for his friendliness was a sock on the nose. Norene did not have leverage to do much else. Try defending yourself from a friendly black dog in the shadows while you are in a squatting position with your backside bare and while hanging onto your britches with one hand and trying not to pee down your leg. Ain’t easy.

Norene came back into the house and washed her hands at the kitchen sink. Then she went into the living room where The Tonight Show was still playing, the lights were still blazing, and the bathroom door was still closed. She sat down and watched until The Tonight Show went off at midnight, and a late night talk show came on. She wondered what movies were playing, but did not turn the channel because whoever was in the bathroom obviously wanted this channel to go on playing.

About ten after midnight, Norene gave up, trudged upstairs, leaving the television going and the lights burning so that the bathroom user could have everything going when use was again required.

Upstairs, Norene chanced to glimpse into her parents’ bedroom which was at the top of the stairs. In the shadowy light from the hall nightlight, she could see that they were both in bed.

“Who in the hell’s is in the bathroom?!” Norene demanded.

“We don’t know,” her father answered.

“We thought it was you,” her mother said. “The door was closed when we got back inside after your sister and her family left.”

“Well, I’ve just made a trip outside,” I informed them. “I waited as long as I could for the bathroom to be clear.”

They replied that they had waited patiently to use the bathroom, too, then had gone outside to relieve themselves, also. Norene’s mother hadn’t even gotten to brush her false teeth because her toothbrush was in the bathroom. The bathroom that had the door shut.

Muttering to herself, Norene turned around, went back down the stairs, passed the playing television and the burning lights, and approached the bathroom door. It stared dauntingly, almost mockingly, at her. She knocked, but got no answer. With trepidation, she slowly turned the door handle and opened the bathroom door. 

The bathroom was empty.

Norene turned off the living room lights and the television and went upstairs to bed. Then everyone on the farm went back to sleep, including the dog with a slightly bruised nose.

All that Norene and her parents could ever figure had happened was that Norene’s older niece, who was about six at the time, had used the bathroom right before leaving and had closed the bathroom door as she left. Nobody ever closed unoccupied bathroom doors in the country. That was city ways.

Norene’s niece was being raised in town. She nor her little sister did not know country ways. They closed bathroom doors.

That fact about the nieces not knowing country ways was brought home several years later when Norene’s sister and her husband and daughters rode along down the bluff into the next county to the place where Norene’s paternal grandparents had lived up in the hills. Norene’s parents now owned the deserted farm. 

Norene’s father and brother-in-law were down at the barn, and the ladies were up by the house when the ladies decided that they needed to relieve themselves. The house was vacant. Its indoor bathroom facilities had been removed several years before. The trusty old wooden outhouse still stood out beyond the chicken house, but the flooring was probably rotten. Nobody wanted to test its safety for fear of going through the flooring and winding up in the half-filled hole beneath the outhouse.

What to do? No problem for Norene, her mother, and her sister. They were country girls and promptly pulled their pants down and squatted. Ah, what a relief!

After a few moments, Norene noticed her nieces. “What are those girls doing behind us?!” Norene wanted to know. “Why are they bent over looking at us like that?!”

Whereupon, Norene’s sister answered that her daughters were trying to figure out how the three older ladies were able to perform the relieving without having the pee run down the inside of their legs. Her girls couldn’t do that feat.

Whereupon, Norene informed her nieces that this wasn’t a free home demonstration, and to back off!

Wouldn’t those little girls have been shocked to know that their daddy and their grandpa could relieve themselves down at the barn without even squatting and still not have the pee run down the inside of their legs!


End file.
